Tracie Afifi

Associate Professor
Department of Community Health Sciences
Faculty of Medicine
University of Manitoba
Email: T_Afifi@umanitoba.caWebsite

Tracie Afifi received her Bachelor of Science (BSc) in 1999 and her Master of Science (MSc) in 2003 at the University of Manitoba. Her MSc thesis research focused on the relationship between child physical abuse and adolescent motherhood. In 2009, she completed her Doctorate in the Department of Community Health Sciences at the University of Manitoba. Her dissertation research examined problem gambling among women in Canada. Following her PhD, Dr. Afifi did a Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) post-doctoral fellowship studying behavioral-genetics analysis of posttraumatic stress disorder at the University of Regina and the University of British Columbia. Dr. Afifi joined the faculty in the Department of Community Health Sciences with a cross appointment in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Manitoba in 2010. She was promoted to Associate Professor in 2014 was granted tenure in 2016.

Dr. Afifi is interested in studying mental and physical health correlates of physical punishment, protective factors related to resilience following child maltreatment, and effective child maltreatment interventions. Dr. Afifi has published over 70 peer-reviewed journal publications and presented research findings in over 75 national and international conference proceedings. Dr. Afifi has participated in over 100 media interviews for print, radio, television, and social media resulting in over 1,500 known worldwide news stories.

Paula Barata

Paula Barata is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Guelph, Ontario. Her research interests include women’s health; violence against women; social and criminal justice; research participation; feminist theory in psychology. Dr. Barata’s present research deals with the psychosocial determinants that influence women’s health and wellbeing and she is currently working on projects dealing with housing discrimination against battered women and the incorporation of HPV technologies into cervical cancer prevention.

Jane Barlow

Jane Barlow is a Professor of Public Health in the Early Years at the University of Warwick. Professor Barlow’s main research interest is the role of early parenting in the aetiology of mental health problems, and in particular the evaluation of early interventions aimed at improving parenting practices, particularly during pregnancy and the postnatal period. Her programme of research focuses on interventions that are provided around infancy, and she has recently provided the evidence-base for the revised Child Health Promotion Programme (0 – 3 years). She is co-director of Warwick Infant and Family Wellbeing Unit, which provides training and research in innovative evidence-based methods of supporting parenting during pregnancy and the early years, to a wide range of early years and primary care practitioners. She has also undertaken extensive research on the effectiveness of interventions in the field of child protection, and has produced numerous Cochrane reviews on this topic and was an author on one of the recent Lancet international reviews of what works. She is currently writing a book on evidence-based practice in the field of child emotional abuse, and is undertaking a review for RIP on the practice and organizational factors involved in child protection.

Prabha Chandra

Prabha S. Chandra is a Professor of Psychiatry at the Department of Psychiatry at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bangalore, India. Her main research contributions in the areas of women’s mental health have been in perinatal psychiatry, psychosomatic obstetrics and gynecology and the impact of violence on the mental health of women. Professor Chandra has received several national awards for her research. She has been a member of the HIV Behavioral Research Advisory group of the Indian Council of Medical Research and has also served as a Temporary Advisor to the WHO and UNAIDS. She is a member of the executive committee of the International Marce society for perinatal psychiatry and is on the editorial board of the Indian journal of Medical Ethics. She has published widely in the above areas of research and has edited several books and training manuals. She was one of the Principal investigators of a Govt of India task force project on Impact of violence on womens health.

Mariette Chartier is a Research Scientist at the Manitoba Centre for Health Policy (MCHP) and assistant professor in Community Health Sciences at the University of Manitoba. MCHP is a research centre of excellence that conducts world class population-based research on health services, population and public health, and the social determinants of health. It houses administrative data on health, education and social services. Dr. Chartier brings to the table a combination of clinical, research and policy development experiences. She has published in the area of childhood prevention and intervention programs, child risk factors, child maltreatment and anxiety disorders research. She endeavors to bridge the gap between academia and other stakeholders by developing partnerships with government, service providers and community on policy relevant research. Currently, she is co-leading, with government and health sector representatives, a collaborative demonstration project that aims to improve mental health in families with infants. She is also involved on four major projects at MCHP in the areas of children in care, kidney failure, health of Francophones and population-based outcomes for children in Manitoba.

Delphine Collin-Vézina

Dr. Delphine Collin-Vézina is a clinical psychologist by training and a researcher in the area of child sexual abuse, child maltreatment and trauma. She holds the Tier II Canada Research Chair in Child Welfare and is an Associate Professor in the School of Social Work at McGill University. While her past research program focused mostly on the psychiatric disorders associated with child sexual abuse among hospital-based populations, her current research agenda focuses more closely on intervention programs that aim to strengthen the coping abilities of foster children and youth, as well as on the social and organizational factors that impact the ways in which maltreatment cases, especially those of sexual abuse, are being handled and addressed in the Canadian child protection system and abroad.

Danielle Davidov

West Virginia University School of Medicine
Department of Emergency Medicine
PO Box 4149
Morgantown, West Virginia, 26506
Email: ddavidov@hsc.wvu.edu

Danielle Davidov is Assistant Professor in the Departments of Emergency Medicine and Social and Behavioral Sciences at West Virginia University. She received her PhD in Public Health Sciences from West Virginia University in 2010. Dr. Davidov’s dissertation work focused on mandatory reporting of intimate partner violence and children’s exposure to intimate partner violence within the context of the Nurse-Family Partnership home visitation program. Since 2012, she has received a continuous Loan Repayment Program Award from the National Institutes of Minority Health and Health Disparities to study intimate partner violence in the Appalachian region. Most recently, Dr. Davidov was selected as a West Virginia Clinical and Translational Science Institute Research Scholar, which provides support and additional training and mentorship related to clinical and translational research. Under the auspices of this award, she has partnered with researchers at the University of Kentucky to explore factors related to adoption and implementation of bystander programs for sexual and interpersonal violence. Her research interests include intimate partner and sexual violence and the healthcare response to violence. She uses qualitative and mixed methods as well as formative and process evaluation to inform the translation of violence prevention and intervention programs.

Jeffrey Edleson

University of California, Berkeley
School of Social Welfare
Haviland Hall 123
T: 510.642.5039
Email: jedleson@berkeley.edu

Jeffrey Edleson is dean and professor of the School of Social Welfare at the University of California, Berkeley. He is also professor emeritus at the University of Minnesota School of Social Work and the founding director of the Minnesota Center Against Violence and Abuse. A leading expert in domestic violence, Dr. Edleson’s current research examines the impact of adult violence on children and how social systems respond to these children. His work also focuses on international parental abduction in cases of domestic violence and the evaluation of interventions and policies on family violence. His body of publications comprises more than 120 articles and 12 books.

Dr. Edleson’s recent appointments include the National Institute of Justice’s Scientific Review Panel on Family Violence and Violence Against Women as well as the National Advisory Committee on Violence Against Women. He is an elected fellow of the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare.

Gene Feder

Gene Feder is a Professor of Primary Health care at the University of Bristol who trained at Guy’s Hospital medical school, qualifying in 1982. This followed a BSc in Biology and Philosophy from the University of Sussex. He trained as a GP and was a principal in Hackney, east London for 21 years until he moved to Bristol in 2008. He has chaired three NICE clinical guidelines, sat on the 2010 Department of Health task-force on responding to violence against women and children (chairing the domestic violence subgroup), is an expert advisor to the WHO on domestic violence and health, and in 2009 was short-listed for the BMJ group awards for outstanding achievement in evidence based health care. Gene’s research career started with an MD on the health and health care of Traveller Gypsies. This was followed by studies on the development and implementation of clinical guidelines, the management of chronic respiratory and cardiovascular conditions in primary care and the health impact of domestic violence. His current research programmes focus on stable angina and health care responses to domestic violence. His main methodological expertise is in randomised controlled trials and systematic reviews. He collaborates with epidemiologists and social scientists on cohort and qualitative studies respectively.

Barbara Fallon

Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work
University of Toronto
246 Bloor St. West
Toronto, ON M5S 1V4
Email: barbara.fallon@utoronto.ca

Dr. Barbara Fallon is an Associate Professor and the Associate Dean of Research at the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work at the University of Toronto. Dr. Fallon is also the Factor-Inwentash Chair in Child Welfare and the Director of Knowledge Mobilization for the Fraser Mustard Institute for Human Development. Dr. Fallon’s research interests include international comparisons of child protection systems and the contribution of worker and organizational characteristics to child welfare decision-making. Her research focuses on alleviating the burden of suffering for children and families identified and served by the child welfare system. Dr. Fallon is currently the Principal Investigator of the Ontario Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect (OIS) 2013 and the Ontario Child Abuse and Neglect Data System. She was the Director of the Canadian Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect 2008 (CIS-2008) and managed two previous cycles of the study. Dr. Fallon has contributed to key policy implementations through her research. In particular, Dr. Fallon’s findings have led to the introduction of differential response models and specialized intimate partner violence teams. Her research has also informed both front-line child welfare workers and policymakers in understanding the use of risk assessments in child protection investigations and opportunities for early intervention and prevention for children at risk of maltreatment. In 2009 she was awarded the Child Welfare League of Canada’s Outstanding Research and Evaluation Award.

Marilyn Ford-Gilboe

Arthur Labatt Family School of Nursing
H37 Health Sciences Addition
The University of Western Ontario
1151 Richmond St.
London, Ontario N6A 3C1
Email: mfordg@uwo.caWebsite

Marilyn Ford-Gilboe, PhD, RN, FAAN, is a Professor and Women’s Health Research Chair in Rural Health in the Arthur Labatt Family School of Nursing at the University of Western Ontario. For the past 2 decades, her research program has focused on understanding health inequities and promoting the health and quality of life of women who have experienced intimate partner violence (IPV) and their families. In her continuously funded research program, she has obtained lead or co-lead studies that generate and tested theory, analyze policy, and test complex, tailored interventions using methodological and analytic approaches including a landmark 4 year longitudinal study examining changes in women’s health, resources, experiences of violence, and the economic costs of IPV, after separation from an abusive partner (Women’s Health Effects Study). In collaboration with national and international teams, her current research focusses on developing and testing trauma-informed, community-based interventions for abused women (e.g. iHEAL, Reclaiming our Spirits, Nurse Family Partnership) and those living in marginalized conditions (e.g. Equip Health Care), as well as online interventions designed to enhancing safety planning and mental health of women experiencing partner violence (e.g. I Can Plan 4 Safety). She is particularly interested in interventions which are appropriate for diverse groups of women and families, including those living in rural settings and Aboriginal women. She is also She is President of the Nursing Network on Violence Against Women International (NNVAWI), sits on a number of committees including the Violence Expert Panel of the American Academy of Nursing, Advisory Committees for PreVAiL and the Center for Research and Education on Violence Against Women and Children (CREVAWC) at Western University.

Anita Gagnon

Anita J. Gagnon is a Professor and Interim Director at the Ingram School of Nursing of McGill University, and a Senior Scientist at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. She is a professional nurse with a Master’s degree in Public Health (MPH) and a doctoral degree (PhD) in Epidemiology and Biostatistics. She is Principal Investigator or Co-Investigator on several grants related to the reproductive health of migrant women and has presented and published in several venues. She is currently leading the “Migrant-Friendly Maternity Care in Montreal” project, which examines maternity care sensitivity towards newly-migrant women in four Montreal university hospitals from women and health care providers` perspectives. She is also leading three inter-related systematic reviews examining reproductive health challenges and potential solutions.

Dr. Gagnon has also been involved in other professional activities at the national and international level, including: Citizenship and Immigration Canada Policy Priority Leader for Family, Children and Youth, and Co-Leader of Reproductive Outcome And Migration (ROAM): An International Research Collaboration. Her research interests include the reproductive health of forced migrant women; maternal, child and perinatal health; health services research; public health; epidemiology; and evidence-based practice (both clinical and policy).

Deirdre Gartland is a Research Officer at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute. For the past two years Dr. Gartland has been working with the Healthy Mothers Healthy Families Research Group at Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, Melbourne, Australia. Together with colleagues, she is conducting a large longitudinal pregnancy cohort study of first time mothers looking at their physical and mental health. Prior to this, she was working at the Centre for Adolescent Health, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute. She has recently completed her doctorate which involved the development of a multidimensional measure of resilience for Adolescents. Her research interests are maternal and family health and how to foster resilience in families.

Kathy Georgiades is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neurosciences at McMaster University. Dr. Georgiades’ research examines the influences of neighbourhoods, schools and families on mental health of immigrant and refugee children and youth. She was recently awarded a New Investigator Fellowship from the Ontario Mental Health Foundation to assess the feasibility of conducting a longitudinal, school-based study of immigrant youth in grades 4-8 in Hamilton, Ontario. The study will compare the mental health and functioning of refugee, immigrant and non-immigrant youth, and examine the extent to which exposure to stressful life circumstances accounts for group differences in mental health and functioning.

Andrea Gonzalez is Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neurosciences at McMaster University and currently holds a CIHR New Investigator Award. She received her PhD (2008) in Psychology and Neuroscience from the University of Toronto. Dr. Gonzalez trained clinically at the Child Advocacy and Assessment Program (CAAP) at McMaster Children’s Hospital and in the Stroke Program at the Hospital for Sick Children. Her overall research focus is to understand the mechanisms by which maternal exposure to childhood maltreatment is associated with difficulties in parenting and how risk may be transmitted across generations. More specifically, she is interested identifying risk and resilience factors contributing to parenting, including potential endocrinological and neuropsychological variables. She hopes to inform work on prevention and intervention, such that these endeavours take full account of the multi-level changes precipitated by maltreatment.

Kathy Hegadoren

Kathy Hegadoren is a Professor in Nursing with a joint appointment in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Alberta. In 2005, Dr. Hegadoren was awarded a Canada Research Chair in Stress Disorders in Women. She has been involved in mental health in the Edmonton region for over 30 years. Most of her clinical background involves child and adolescent psychiatric and mood disorders programs. She has also worked as a mental health consultant for Alberta Health. Her unique background in nursing and basic science training allows her to examine both psychosocial and biological factors in women’s mental health. Dr. Hegadoren is the first nurse in Canada to be awarded a Canadian Foundation for Innovation infrastructure grant, which was used to build basic science research facilities within a Faculty of Nursing. These research facilities, as well as her commitment to a broad conceptualization of nursing research, have allowed her to actively participate in multidisciplinary research teams.

Martine Hébert

Martine Hébert (Ph.D. in psychology) is currently full professor at the sexology department of Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM). She has training in child development and child clinical psychology as well as a strong background in psychometry. In the past 20 years, her research interests have focused on the consequences associated with interpersonal trauma. She has published research papers documenting the diversity of profiles in children victims of sexual abuse, correlates of resilience and the effects of intervention programs and prevention initiatives. Research articles have included analysis from large-scale surveys of community samples, studies involving both clinical samples and comparison groups of children and adolescents, as well as program evaluation studies (ESPACE program, TF-CBT). She is currently conducting a survey with a representative sample of high-school students in the province of Quebec exploring romantic relationships and dating violence (Youths’ Romantic Relationship Survey). She has recently co-edited a two volume book (Hébert, Cyr, & Tourigny, 2011; 2012 – L’agression sexuelle envers les enfants) that offers up-to-date information on evaluation, evidence-based treatments and protocols, and prevention initiatives in the area of child sexual abuse. She is PI of the CIHR Team of interpersonal traumas and the FQRSC Team on sexual violence and health (EVISSA).

Kelsey Hegarty

Kelsey Hegarty is Associate Professor and leads the Abuse and Violence in Primary care research program in the Primary Care Research Unit. She is also Equity and Staff Development coordinator and Director of the Postgraduate Primary Care Nursing Course in the Department of General Practice at the University of Melbourne. During the last decade Kelsey has contributed at both national and international levels to the intimate partner violence field. A major contribution has been that for her PhD, she developed a new measure of domestic violence the Composite Abuse Scale, which is the first Australian validated multidimensional measure of partner abuse. It is currently being used by researchers from Canada, United States, Russia, Spain, The Netherlands and the United Kingdom. It was published in the Centres for Disease Control Compendium of intimate partner violence measures in 2006. She currently leads the first large domestic violence screening trial in general practice (NHMRC), and played a significant role in the development of the international guidelines on clinician management of all family members. Kelsey translates her research into policy and practice via this teaching and she is currently chair of the management committee of the Domestic Violence Resource Centre Victoria. She practices clinically as a GP one day per week.

Susan Jack

School of Nursing
McMaster University – HSC 2J30
1200 Main Street West
Hamilton, ON L8N 3Z5
Email: jacksm@mcmaster.ca

Susan Jack is an Associate Professor in the School of Nursing and an Associate Member in the Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics at McMaster University. She holds a BScN from the University of Alberta and a PhD (Nursing) from McMaster University. As a nurse, she has worked in predominantly community settings providing public health services to promote healthy child and parent development. Currently, Dr. Jack holds the CIHR Institute of Human Development, Child and Youth Health, Reproduction and Child Health New Investigator Personnel Award (2007-2012). Using predominantly qualitative and mixed methods approaches to research, she is involved in the following ongoing research projects: (1) development and evaluation of an intervention for intimate partner violence in the context of nurse home visits; (2) conduct of qualitative research by nurse-researchers with women exposed to intimate partner violence; (3) uptake and utilization of research evidence by child welfare policy makers; (4) evidence-informed decision-making in women’s health and translating research knowledge about intimate partner violence for policy and practice; (5) exploring knowledge brokering in public health; (6) parenting by women exposed to childhood maltreatment; and (7) qualitative projects within the McMaster University Violence Against Women program of research.

Melissa Kimber

Melissa Kimber currently Ontario Women’s Health Scholar Post-Doctoral Fellowship award, funded by the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care. Situated within Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neurosciences and the Offord Centre for Child Studies at McMaster University, Dr. Kimber received her PhD (2015) in Health Research Methodology within the Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics at McMaster University. Dr. Kimber has a particular interest in investigating and understanding the putative risk and protective factors for eating disorders and family violence among children and adolescents and the extent to which evidence-based interventions to address these concerns can be implemented with fidelity in everyday clinical practice. Dr. Kimber is also the Founder and Co-director of the Researching Adolescent Lives (ReAL) Lab (www.reallab.ca); a virtual research lab that combines clinical, population and public health approaches in order to research, understand and promote child and adolescent wellbeing.

Anita Kothari

The University of Western Ontario
Labatt Health Sciences Building
London, Ontario,
Canada, N6A 5B9
Email: akothari@uwo.ca

Anita Kothari is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Western Ontario. She is interested in testing strategies to support evidence-informed decision-making by practitioners, managers and policy-makers in community based settings. Anita is also studying and developing the field of public health systems research. She currently holds a CIHR new investigator award, and was recently given a Faculty Scholar award by Western University.

ChrisTopher Mikton

Department of Applied Sciences
University of the West of England
Bristol, BS16 1QY
United Kingdom

Christopher Mikton is as an Associate Professor of Criminology and Public health at the University of the West of England (UWE) in Bristol, UK. He has a background in international violence prevention and criminology, with a specialization in forensic psychiatry. He joined UWE in 2016 after working in the Prevention of Violence Unit at the World Health Organization for 9 years. Before that he worked as a Clinical Scientist for the UK Department of Health/Ministry of Justice’s Dangerous and Severe Personality Disorder Programme, where he was affiliated with the Psychiatry Department at Queen Mary University, London and at the International Committee of the Red Cross. Chris holds PhD and MPhil degrees from the Institute of Criminology of the University of Cambridge and a BA from McGill University in Montreal, Canada. He has two broad areas of expertise: global violence prevention using a public health approach and personality disorders in forensic settings. Within global violence prevention, he has a particular focus on child maltreatment prevention, parenting programmes, longitudinal research, violence against people with disabilities, violence prevention in low- and middle-income countries, and data synthesis.

David Olds is Professor of Pediatrics, Psychiatry, Nursing and Public Health at the University of Colorado Denver, where he directs the Prevention Research Center for Family and Child Health. He has devoted his career to investigating methods of preventing health and developmental problems in children and parents from low-income families. His original work examined the effects of prenatal and postpartum nurse home visitation (the Nurse Family Partnership – NFP) on the outcomes of pregnancy, infant health and development, and maternal life course, and determined the impact of those services on government spending. He has received numerous awards for this research, including the Charles A. Dana Award for Pioneering Achievements in Health, the Lela Rowland Prevention Award from the National Mental Health Association, a Research Scientist Award from the National Institute of Mental Health, and the Stockholm Prize in Criminology. He currently is carrying out longitudinal follow-ups of the samples enrolled in the original trials of the NFP, conducting research on improving the NFP model, developing new early health-care interventions based upon the NFP model, and consulting with governments in other societies to adapt and test the NFP in international contexts.

John Oliffe

Dr. John Oliffe is a Professor at the School of Nursing at the University of British Columbia. Founder and lead investigator of UBC’s Men’s Health Research program (www.menshealthresearch.ubc.ca ), his work focuses on masculinities as it influences men’s health behaviors and illness management, and its impact on partners, families and overall life quality. Findings drawn from his research offer guidance to clinicians and researchers to advance men’s health promotion in the areas of psychosocial prostate cancer care, smoking cessation and male suicide prevention. An ex-pat Australian Dr. Oliffe has attracted more than $20 million in research funding and published 170 peer reviewed articles since being recruited to UBC in 2003.

Jitender Sareen

Jitender Sareen is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Psychology and Community Health Sciences at the University of Manitoba. Dr. Sareen is the Director of Research and Anxiety Services in the Department of Psychiatry at the Health Sciences Centre in Winnipeg. He is also a consulting psychiatrist for the Veterans Affairs Canada Operational Stress Injury Clinic at Deer Lodge Hospital in Winnipeg. He has published over 100 peer-reviewed publications in the areas of traumatic stress, anxiety disorders, Aboriginal suicide, neuroimaging, and military mental health. He has been supported by numerous national and local peer-reviewed grants. Although his areas of interest are quite diverse, he is leading a large partnership grant with First Nations communities in Northwestern Manitoba to improve the understanding of suicide and suicide prevention measures. He also is the Co-Leader of a Mental Health Commission of Canada sponsored Winnipeg homelessness project. Finally, he has held national grants to study the mental health treatment needs of Canadian soldiers. He holds two salary support awards: 1) The Canadian Institutes of Health Research New Investigator Award, and 2) the Manitoba Health Research Council Chair Award. He has also received national awards for excellence in research (Canadian Psychiatric Association) and teaching (University of Manitoba).

Philip Scribano is a Professor of Clinical Pediatrics at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Scribano is the Director of Safe Place: Center for Child Protection and Health at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the Program Director for the Child Abuse Pediatrics fellowship at CHOP. He trainied in Pediatrics, Pediatric Emergency Medicine and Child Abuse Pediatrics. His research interests include child maltreatment assessment and prevention, interventions to reduce intimate partner violence, and technology enhancements in healthcare. He was awarded multiple program and research grants including awards from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the Centers for Disease Control, U.S. Administration on Children and Families, and U.S. Department of Justice.

Colleen Varcoe

Colleen Varcoe is Professor and Director pro tem of the School of Nursing at the University of British Columbia. Her research focuses on women’s health with emphasis on violence and inequity and the culture of health care with an emphasis on ethical practice. Her program of research is aimed at promoting ethical practice and policy in the context of violence and inequity. Dr. Varcoe recently completed a study of the interacting risks of violence and HIV infection for rural and Aboriginal women and a study of ethical practice in nursing. Last year she completed a participatory study of rural maternity care for Aboriginal women with women in four communities. She has also just completed a study of how the ideas of social justice and equity might enhance policy development. She is currently co-leader of team conducting a longitudinal study of the health and economic effects of violence against women after women have left abusive partners, of a study examining the delivery of primary health care at urban Aboriginal health clinics, and a study of Aboriginal women’s experiences of leaving an abusive partner. She has over 50 peer reviewed publications; including a co-edited book entitled Women’s Health in Canada: Critical perspectives on theory and policy.

Charlotte Waddell

Charlotte Waddell is a child and adolescent psychiatrist with longstanding interests in health policy and population and public health. She holds the Canada Research Chair in Children’s Health Policy and is Professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University (SFU), where she is also Director of the Children’s Health Policy Centre. After her basic training at UBC, Charlotte worked with First Nations and Aboriginal communities across BC before going on to complete her MD followed by residencies and research training at McMaster University. She held faculty appointments at McMaster and UBC before joining SFU in 2006. Charlotte’s research focuses on reducing mental health disparities, starting in childhood, by improving the links between research and policy. Among other projects, she is currently co-leading the BC Healthy Connections Project, a randomized controlled trial assessing the effectiveness of the Nurse-Family Partnership program at improving child and maternal outcomes in BC. In addition to her research, Charlotte teaches at SFU and consults with policymakers at the regional, provincial and federal levels. She also continues to work as a psychiatrist with disadvantaged children and youth – who inspire and inform every aspect of her research and teaching. For more information, please see www.childhealthpolicy.ca.

Christine Wekerle is an Associate Professor, Department of Pediatrics – Faculty of Health Sciences, at McMaster University and affiliate of the Offord Centre for Child Studies at McMaster. She is Editor-in-Chief of the journal, Child Abuse & Neglect, an author in the 2016 2nd edition of the book, Child Maltreatment (Hogrefe). Currently, Dr. Wekerle leads a Canadian Institutes of Health Research [CIHR] an international team on examining the issue of child sexual abuse among male youth and its relationship to health and resilience. A significant focus of this team is to consider resilience in various groups of youth, including child welfare, sports-involved, and justice-involved. There will be a double issue on this topic in the Journal of Child and Adolescent Trauma in 2017, guest edited by Dr. Patricia Kerig and Dr. Wekerle. Previously, she lead another CIHR team considering child maltreatment and impairment among youth and adults, with focal areas in youth suicide, addictions, dating violence, homelessness, and sub-populations of youth at higher risk for maltreatment-related negative consequences. Her research covers the key construct areas of: adolescent dating violence, self-harm, mental health, violence, substance abuse, and Aboriginal/First Nations health. Her resilience work is open access, with a peer-reviewed journal, The International Journal of Child and Adolescent Resilience (www.in-car.ca), Twitter, Instagram, YouTube ResilienceInYouth and presentations on Prezi. She is developing a library of open access TED Ed Lessons: Risk and Resilience in Youth Suicidality, http://ed.ted.com/on/6nReRcN0 and Adverse Childhood Events (ACEs) & Childhood Maltreatment, http://ed.ted.com/on/iOyQVfhd.

Dr. Wekerle delivered a TEDxHamilton 2015 talk on post-traumatic growth, and is active on Twitter @DrWekerle.